The reference library
The Field Guides
Everything we know about planning, written plainly.
The whole planning cluster in one place — the explainers, the step-by-step field guides, the spreadsheet tutorials, and the worked examples. No jargon, no gatekeeping, no project-management degree required. Written by the studio behind ganttchart.ai.
- In the library
- 19 field guides
- Departments
- 4
- Reading level
- Plain English
- Price
- Free to read
The fundamentals
Start here — the whole idea, in plain English, before any software.
- 01 Explainer What is a Gantt chart? The whole idea in plain English: two axes, one bar per task, and why it beats a to-do list.
- 02 Explainer The critical path method The chain of tasks that actually sets your end date — and how to find it by hand in five steps.
- 03 Explainer What is a work breakdown structure? How to split a big job into pieces small enough to plan — and exactly where to stop splitting.
Planning, start to finish
From a blank page to a plan that survives contact with reality.
- 04 Field guide How to plan a project Five plain-English steps, the vocabulary that matters, and the trick that keeps a plan honest.
- 05 Field guide How to make a project timeline What to put on a timeline people actually follow — and when it should grow into a Gantt chart.
- 06 Field guide How to estimate a project Why single-number estimates are always wrong, and how to estimate in honest ranges instead.
Drawing the chart
The honest ways to actually make one — by sentence, sheet, or slide.
- 07 The head guide How to make a Gantt chart The four ways that actually work, compared — from a plain-English sentence to a hand-drawn grid.
- 08 Tutorial In Microsoft Excel The stacked-bar trick and the conditional-formatting grid, with the exact formulas to copy.
- 09 Tutorial In Google Sheets Three routes — stacked bars, the SPARKLINE formula, and timeline view — step by step.
- 10 Tutorial In PowerPoint Two honest ways to draw a plan on a slide — and why a slide can’t keep it up to date.
- 11 Tutorial In Microsoft Word Two document-native ways — a table with the cells shaded in, and the stacked-bar trick — with the exact clicks.
- 12 Tutorial In Google Docs A shaded table, plus the one trick Word can't match — a chart linked from Google Sheets that refreshes with a click.
- 13 Tutorial In Notion The Timeline view is a real database — the one DIY method that reflows when a date slips, dependencies and all.
- 14 Tutorial In Jira The Timeline view is a real, data-backed roadmap — free on every plan — but it speaks epics and sprints, and it flags a slipped date without ever fixing it.
- 15 Tutorial In Microsoft Project The app the Gantt chart grew up in: type durations, link tasks, and its engine schedules the dates and marks the critical path — the most powerful route, and the only one with no free tier.
- 16 Tutorial With ChatGPT A text model can write the plan — as Mermaid code or a task table — but can't draw, host, or keep the chart alive. The two routes that work, and the catch.
- 17 Buyer’s guide Do you need Gantt chart software? When a spreadsheet stops being enough, what software actually buys you, and the two features that matter.
Worked references
Finished plans to read, copy, and bend to your own project.
The reference desk
The glossary
Every planning word that carries weight — task, dependency, slack, milestone, critical path — defined in a sentence, in plain English.
From the night shift
The journal
Longer-form notes on making small software — the thinking behind the tools, and the opinions the field guides only hint at.
Or skip the reading
The fastest guide is the one you don’t have to read
Every field guide leads to the same place: a plan drawn to scale. Describe your project in a sentence and let ganttchart.ai draw the first one for you.